Ephesos

(The original topic's poll was deemed inappropriate, and has been excised. However, since the rest of the thread was in the clear, and since we can't really moderate polls with any great efficiency, here's what happened. I split the whole topic back into this thread. So yay. Let the discussion continue.) Original poll questions: Does your school/employer/gov't use Internet content filtering? Is internet filtering appropriate? If you said yes above, what level of filtering is appropriate? Resume.

Originally Posted By: cfgauss Right, it's the same as "no detrimental effects". But cell phones were never argued to improve anyone's anything. ...what exactly are you trying to say here. I got lost. Originally Posted By: cfgauss It is data, it's just two data points . That is two anecdotes. Also, you never even specified what you mean by "very little difference between students". Originally Posted By: cfgauss They aren't independent arguments, though. My point is, though, that there shouldn't be censorship because learning computer skills and associated problem solving skills is important for school-aged people to do, and people are more likely to learn these things if they can do fun stuff on the computer. ...I don't think you're listening to what I'm saying. There is data on the other side of the argument from your position, as wz. As pointed out above. Of course, nobody has actually linked to an actual study yet, just news stories about studies, so I still regard them as suspect.

Originally Posted By: First linked article ...speculates that the action video game experience "may cause the expression of previously inactive genes which control the development of neural connections that are necessary for spatial attention"... Meh. I'm highly skeptical of macro-level events triggering genes. Originally Posted By: Second linked article "When it comes to cell phones, Jackson said she saw no detrimental effects to the students’ academic performance." ...no detrimental effects isn't the same as having positive effects. And if it takes time away from the activities that students are actually at school for, then again, it's reasonable to want to limit that. Also, this says nothing of the results with regards to video games... which admittedly isn't part of this discussion, but it's misleading in that it omits results. The third link is probably one of the worst-designed websites I've ever seen. The intro video is hilariously dated. Fourth link is also video games, not really relevant to the discussion at hand. Fifth link is for strategy games like Rise of Nations, which tend to require more time than can be scrounged from a day of school. At least, most schools I'm aware of. Originally Posted By: cfgauss I did. The community college and university were in different places. No difference among people of the same age. Especially unexpected, since many of the people at the community college were there because they didn't get into the universities they applied to! Sample size of 2 != data. ...yeah, my main beef here is that there seem to be two different arguments going on here: 1) Do video games and games in general show promise for educational purposes? 2) Should schools allow unrestricted internet access to students? Ditto for businesses and their employees.

Originally Posted By: cfgauss I don't know what statistical confidence level these things were demonstrated to offhand, but I've heard enough of these reports that it seems to be generally accepted by the psychologists as a real effect. And, having recently seen nieces and nephews grow up around computers, and seeing how those skills spill over into other things, I'm not surprised by those findings. citation plz kthxbai (seriously, otherwise this is just unsubstantiated fluff) Originally Posted By: cfgauss (quote condensed) ...having taught/TAd/tutored people at a large university... there's very little difference between students based on where they're from. That is at the university level. At that point, students generally have to have proven at least some degree of proficiency, so it would make sense that the differences dwindle. Also, your point would carry more weight if you had taught/TA-ed at institutions in different areas. Originally Posted By: cfgauss Because all the cool kids are doing it. Seriously. ...well yes. I acknowledge that. That's pretty much the whole point of social networking sites. But there's still a point past which the hassle is less than the payoff. And if one's only access to Mytweetfacetubesspacebook is on a school computer (which is typically a low-spec, misused and abused piece of equipment), then the hassle is greatly increased.

Originally Posted By: cfgauss Not to mention that, given how most schools go, the computer skills they learn screwing around on facebook may well be more valuable than what they learn in some of their classes. ...I am highly suspect of this. Playing Farmville and poking people is not valuable. And if school is the only time/place they have to use computers, why would they be on Facespace at all? And "how most schools go" varies from place to place, and it varies rather a lot. The few that are really that intent on self-teaching will probably be doing that at home anyway. Originally Posted By: cfgauss I really think it'd be better for the schools to focus on individual students actually doing well in classes, rather than paying (sometimes very large) amounts of money to a questionable service that randomly blocks pages, since I think it's debatable if there's any positive effect on students at all by doing this. It's not a binary choice. Nobody is saying "either we help the kids learn or we block their Myfacetubes access". They can do both. And there are far bigger money-wasters out there, truthfully. Many schools will "waste" vast amounts of money on sports programs whose only purpose is to impress alumni (when they win, of course). And at least they're not spying on their students.

I'm pretty much in agreement with SoT. Also, I do recall seeing some filter services blocking this site (cafés mostly), but one quick email saying "No, this has nothing to do with all the humor writing on ironycentral proper", they unblocked it. Or it was automated, go figure. Regardless of whether it's a good idea, filtering sites is a pretty difficult task. You're always going to get false positives and negatives, but the OP's experience sounds like a one-off glitch.

Alright, it is official! The next session of the Blood Marsh campaign is this Sunday, March 28th, at 4pm CDT. Why 4pm, you might ask? Because then we might actually get going by 5. Originally Posted By: Ikthak, goblin archmage "A small blemish on the face of the sun... not too unusual. However, its duration is truly what worries me, as I first observed it two months prior, and comparable spots have dissipated in that time. I wonder if my brother has observed the same phenomenon."

Originally Posted By: Other If those children steal from you and you don't catch them, where would the items go? Would they be gone forever? Thanks to my leet walkthrough-reading skills, they go to a shopkeeper... somewhere in the Den. Dunno where.

*ding* Click to reveal.. (Harosh, level 3) Name: Harosh (Level 3) Occupation: PROTECTOR OF THE DACHSUND Alignment: Distant Race: Lacewing Homeland: Ssareko Point Deity: Liea Strength: 3 Dexterity: 4 Intelligence: 5 Health: 12/15 Magic (Transmutation): 4 Magic (Divination): 1 Martial (Shovel): 2 Perception: 2 History: 3 Thievery: 1

Originally Posted By: Delicious Salmon Kingdom of Loathing trumps them all. QFT

See, I didn't want to extend my Fallout 2 rant, but okay. Getting healing items in the early game is good. Getting healing items that kill your Perception in the early game is less good. It also does not help that I am fantastically unlucky... I'll miss 80% shots about half the time, and don't talk to me about the awful hit chances I had with that spear. And yes, the ants/scorpions weren't that tough, but they could still kill me without extreme vigilance. There was a lot of running involved. ...and yes, you can get your first gun in that first town without much trouble. I recall it was a pipe rifle, and it was terrible. Sure, one shot then reload. That works great. Absolutely wonderful. Oh, and it's inaccurate, too? Awesome. But even once you get guns, you can't find enough ammo to do much of anything. It's only because I managed to pump some skill into melee that I was able to clear out the most basic of quests. There's also a bit of a 1 solution per problem thing going on... let's take the cave full of mutant geckos with the radioactive floor. The only way to get past that floor without getting radiated is with rubber boots. There are two rubber boots in the game, and I, having written them off as worthless, left them... somewhere. And then that whole area's in the dark anyway, so forget any hope of an accurate shot. And the random encounters... good lord. You can't spit without hitting a group of thugs, all of whom are built like tanks and certainly aren't going to be bothered by plinks from a pipe rifle. ...one more example. There's a quest to defend a herd of Brahmin from a pack of wild dogs. Okay, fine, sign me up. Wait, they attack at night? Damn, there goes my aim. And there's fifteen of them? Awesome. The only way I was able to complete this quest was by having the NPC with the sledgehammer with me, and just running my full movement away from the dogs each round, positioning them so that the NPC could smash 'em. That alone took half an hour, and it was not fun. And there was no other way I could complete that quest (unless I am stupid, which I admit is entirely possible). So yeah. I gave up on that game. Constantly low on ammo, and constantly being shown up by my NPC.

On the topic of Fallout, I just couldn't get into 2. And this was after playing all the way through 1, tapdancing around a few bugs (with the aid of a walkthrough), and thoroughly enjoying the experience. So I load up Fallout 2, and start setting up a character similar to the Vault Dweller I had just played, a pistol-sniping perception-heavy kinda outdoorsman. ...and then the game gives me a spear, and says go. I have a strength of 5, and the less said about my melee prowess the better. Seriously? Like, I understand that the new backstory for the second game necessitates some changes, but I mean... come on! Making half of the normally-viable characters nigh-unplayable for the first 90 minutes of the game is not an acceptable course of action, in my opinion. Give me a sling or something, just don't screw me over like that.

Originally Posted By: Nioca Should I still blame an NPC? Apparently, if we've learned anything over the last few weeks, it's that everything is Zarusa's fault.

Updated, updated, updated. Also, currently looking at Sunday, March 28th, at a slightly earlier-than-normal time. Could people work with that? (that includes subs) Originally Posted By: Tabazinth, elven necromancer "Of course people try to raid the tombs. Sometimes it's just greed, hoping for some sort of ancient buried relic, and sometimes they want to put the contents to more nefarious purposes. Regardless, many people try, and a few even survive."

Yay flowers! Yay spring!

*shakes fist over being shown up at cartography*

The short version: Play it, it's fun. [rating]Average[/rating] The long version: New scenario by a new designer... always good! Even better, new scenario by a new designer who's paying attention to detail. As others have said, the scenario is strongly story-based, which is good, particularly when it's a brand-new setting. The downside is that in the beginning, you are kind of crushed by weighty exposition. Like, crushed. There's a lot to pick up on very quickly, and a lot of names, some of which become largely irrelevant very quickly. But with that said, the story is quite good, maintaining a healthy balance of intrigue and hack'n'slash. The towns are... well, I don't like them very much. The main tower is just laid out in a very counter-intuitive fashion, with lots of locked gates that can make getting around annoying. There's only one entrance, too, which is kind of odd. The cave you visit has a lot of rough edges, and the forest has a few poorly-placed tall trees that can make combat rather iffy. The outdoors are pretty enough, at least. Combat is mostly of the "waves and waves of similar enemies" variety, until you get to the very late game. The fight in the cave was kind of dull, and easy due to the monsters fighting each other. However, I enjoyed the wolf fight because it actually got my level 6 party worrying about getting surrounded. The Hunan were largely easy, though General Seth didn't actually help that much (unless I missed something, he never actually hit anything, just jumped around in a vaguely annoying manner). The final fight, I might add, has a very odd bug... and basically, the takeaway lesson from it is to just not start dialogue from a creature's DEAD_STATE, because it leads to odd behavior when missiles kill it (no idea why). Hear that, designers? Don't do that! So yeah. My party showed up, did some stuff, gained a bunch of levels, and it was fun. It's a good first effort, and the loose ends intrigued me enough that I'd like to see a sequel. Still, as ES said above me, it could use some more polish. Average. EDIT: Almost forgot... this is the best line in the entire scenario: "Where you thought there was a simple garden, there is actually TREACHERY."

Um, no. I'm not skipping plot, and certainly not giving out "free" levels. I would much rather continue on using substitutes, and I'm talking to people now who could help us out. In fact, if said people could post in this thread... (also, the previous post always had a quote in it) Originally Posted By: Iliandib, sage "I have seen more of this world than most could in two lifetimes, and still I cannot answer the question that plagues so many of us. Where are the gods?"

Everyone's leveling has been marked on the roster page. Now Nixak is the only one who needs to level up, but that's fine since Rowen was absent. Now, mechanical notes. First, Nixak's pet boom squirrel, who we will refer to as Boomy until it gets a proper name. Boomy only has like 2-3 hp, and being a totally mundane animal, is dead if it dies. Nixak can give general commands via telepathy (Sit, Stay, Go over there, etc), but needs to roll for anything that's all that complex. Next, there's Boregloaf's new ability, gleaned from the fight with Vance the Wayfarer: Click to reveal.. (Spinning Blade) Spinning Blade By shifting your balance, you are able to whirl around and lash out at several enemies at once. Instead of a normal attack, you can choose to strike every enemy adjacent to you, making separate attack rolls for each one. For each target after the first, you take a -1 penalty to your defense until your next turn. I think that's it for now. However, there's the issue of scheduling the next session. At the moment, it looks like the earliest we could possibly schedule a Blood Marsh session is April 5th. (Duck please fill out the calendar!) So we could skip Blood Marsh's turn, or we could wait. Thoughts? Originally Posted By: Unattributed "I heard that deep down, all humans are nothing more than savages and cannibals. Um, present company excluded, of course. Oh gods don't eat me!"

Man, I never even tried using those... sounds like it could've possibly simplified the process a little.

I am not going to lock Nikki's hype thread, so I will simply say this: Please stop. Take it to General. Leave the Blades fora to Blades.

Several minor bugs have been fixed, and are now properly uploaded to my site.

Dangit, now I have to out-pretty this with Snowbound...

The log of Session #5 of Selos is available! (Link!) Also, everyone levels up, because that was actually pretty epic. Click to reveal.. (OH GOD IT'S FULL OF QUOTES) Kundak: "So...does anyone happen to have a machete?" Vitze: "HELP, THIS BOAR IS ON TOP OF ME." Boregloaf: "Okay, time to let the squirrel go." Nixak: "Logic dictates that if we just keeping going in one direction, we'll eventually find something." Vance: "You will pay for trying to fool Vance the Wayfarer!" Lanrezac: "When faced with paths of equal difficulty, choose the equally difficult one." Last, here is the calendar for the next Blood Marsh session. (Also, you guys rock as players, just saying. Some of the back-and-forth in yesterday's session was amazing. )

Originally Posted By: Other The source code is, not the actual game. Or am I wrong? You are wrong. The game is free.